Family and supporters of Michael Brown on Monday celebrated the life of the black teenager killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in a music-filled funeral service ringing with calls for peace and police reforms.

Brown's body lay in a black and gold casket at the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church, topped with the St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap he was wearing when he was shot dead on Aug. 9.

Family, Civil Rights Leaders at Brown Service

Michael Brown's family sat at the front of the church as thousands of people who turned out for his funeral filed in, including several civil rights leaders and celebrities. (Aug. 25)

Michael Brown's family sat at the front of the church as thousands of people who turned out for his funeral filed in, including several civil rights leaders and celebrities. (Aug. 25)

People jammed inside the modern red-brick church and gathered outside on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive in St. Louis for the celebration, a markedly different scene from the violent protests that rocked the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson after the shooting of the unarmed 18-year-old Brown.

Brown's death has focused global attention on the state of race relations in the United States. Police and demonstrators in Ferguson clashed nightly for more than a week, with authorities coming under fire for mass arrests and the use of heavy-handed tactics and military gear.

The teenager's coffin was surrounded by photos of him as a child, graduating from school and smiling in his baseball cap.

Spirited gospel music by a choir and horn players filled the sanctuary, and mourners clapped their hands and danced in the aisles. Readings from the Bible were met with whoops and cheers.

@wan-man You forgot Loretta Fuddy. She was the Director of the Hawaii Department of Health who died in a plane crash late last year (the only fatality). She was also responsible for releasing a certified copy of the botched hatchet-job forgery that is Obama's birth certificate, enabling...

"Michael Brown's blood is crying from the ground, crying for vengeance, crying for justice," Ewing said.

Outside, under the hot midday sun, the police presence was heavy but relaxed. Authorities had braced for a possible flare-up, although clashes between protesters and police have waned significantly in recent days.

The crowd repeated the now-familiar "Hands up, don't shoot," which protesters have chanted in the streets of Ferguson.

In differing accounts of Brown's shooting, police have said he struggled with Officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed him. But some witnesses say Brown held up his hands and was surrendering when he was shot multiple times in the head and chest.

After the funeral, people came in small groups to the impromptu memorial at the site of his death, among them Tameka Bryant, 28, a marketing executive at a radio station.

"I just hope we will see justice served," said Bryant, who said she attended Brown's funeral. "The family needs some comfort and peace. I hate to think what would happen if they don't get it. We would have chaos."

It hasn't been so easy for traditional civil rights-era activists in this small St. Louis suburb in recent weeks, where the fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer has put them on all-too-familiar turf: challenging the treatment of African American men by...

Televised scenes of fires and looters ravaging storefront buildings in Ferguson, Mo., brought flashbacks in my memory to other urban riots a half-century ago — and to lessons that Ferguson officials failed to learn.

When a white Ferguson policeman fatally shot a black 18-year-old nearly a year ago, the St. Louis suburb erupted in violent protests and the nation took notice. Since then, legislators in almost every state have proposed changes to the way police interact with the public.